Good News, Overstimulation and Draft Wrestling

I haven’t been on this blog in a while because Christmas break has taken over my life! I don’t know why we even pretend like the holidays are going to be relaxing when we all know that it’s going to be a flurry of crazy, anyway. 🙂 (I mean that in the best way, though–I’ve been having a pretty awesome break, so far.)

1. Three of my stories are being published in two different zines! I can’t say which yet because the issues haven’t come out, but I’m so excited and so happy–I’m a very shy person (even if it doesn’t show because I usually combat that shyness with being real talkative/bubbly) and it took a lot of mental preparation (along with the actual writing, of course) to send the work in. Two works of small fiction and one long story are being put out so yayyyyy for acceptance! 😀 I will link to those once they come out.

2. I’ve been spending most of my time writing and re-writing a couple of drafts I’m working on. So, far I hate most of it. But that’s alright. I feel like being your own antagonist is kind of a pre-req of coming out with stuff that isn’t shit, anyway. Here’s a bit from a draft that’s got me in a chokehold:

If you cut me open you must know that the kitchen knife won’t slice through flesh to reveal scribbled text or a note that says anything coherent, instead all you will find is anatomy: spine, sternum, cage, clavicle, cranium. You should know that there is no way for you to take the things that remain inside—that there is nothing there to take but blood and gut and bone—and that I cannot say the things I mean because in my throat there are no sentences, only strings: larynx, pharynx, vestibule.

3. So many things have been happening to me. And the problem with me is that I can’t ever be productive when I’m overwhelmed because I’m unable to form coherent thoughts. Or rather, all my coherent thoughts are tainted by my excitement or anxiety (really the same thing, as far as I’m concerned). So shit drafts will have to do until I am able to calm down. I think I’ll read–that always helps. My life always seems to go in alternate phases of reading and writing, curiosity and worry.

I also despise the fact that sometimes you meet people who you feel can see through you–not that they can, but that you feel like they can. That always unnerves me. Nervousness is contagious and I feel like it sucks ever more if the other person is feeling nervous too but them feeling that way makes you clam up and so all that happens is analysis paralysis when you could just be making a new friend if one of you wasn’t so chicken about being rejected or looking stupid. But well. I don’t know. Part of me feels like while the elation of being accepted might make the risk of putting yourself out there socially and being rejected worth it, the chances of that happening aren’t very high so, yeah. I need to learn to be more calculating, in that aspect. And maybe this is just me being bull-headed but I’m still on the fence about whether or not I regret trying.